He was not Angola’s most prominent Apostle. Yet he made what had been entrusted to him flourish—and did so unseen. Fernando Muliata would have turned 75 today.
A wealthy man was preparing to go on a journey called his staff together. He gave each of them a different amount of money to manage in his absence. On his return, he settled accounts with them. Had everyone made the most of what they had been given?
Of course, this is the parable of the talents. Its message is well-known: “You were faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things.” This describes a pivotal moment in the spiritual life of Fernando Muliata, who was born on 20 April 1951 in Luchazes, in the province of Moxico in Angola.
Faith in the shadow of war
It was amid war and upheaval that Fernando Muliata found his faith. Since 1961, a guerrilla war had been raging as Angola fought for independence from Portuguese colonial rule. In December 1971, Fernando, who had fled the conflict, was baptised in the border region with Zambia, where New Apostolic congregations already existed.
From 1975 onwards, liberation movements with divergent ideologies began to clash. In the same year, Fernando Muliata was sealed by Apostle Duncan B. Mfune, who would later become District Apostle of Zambia. The civil war continued—with interruptions—until 2002. As always, it was the people who suffered.
A Priest for a young church
At the end of 1984, Fernando Muliata returned to Angola along with other refugees. By then, New Apostolic congregations had already been established there. About a year and a half earlier, Apostles had arrived from North Rhine-Westphalia in Germany and begun their work of spreading the doctrine, building on the testimony and work of fellow believers from Zambia and Zaire (modern Democratic Republic of the Congo).
By the end of 1983, Angola had three congregations; by 1984, there were already more than two dozen. Muliata settled in the capital, Luanda, and became actively involved in the congregation. In 1985, he was ordained a Priest.
In the middle of the most dangerous zone
Civil war—indeed. The province of Cuando Cubango saw some of the fiercest fighting on the African continent since the Second World War. It was here that the rebel movements had set up their headquarters. And it was here—close to his former home—that Priest Muliata carried out his ministry.
It was during his third missionary journey to the provincial capital of Menongue, as Armin Brinkmann recounted in an Our Family article in 2002, that Fernando Muliata was told “that he would not be allowed to return”. He was detained there for three years and was presumed missing.
Faithfulness in secret
Only when it became safe to travel to the region again did it become clear what had happened to the Priest. “He had established an entire district there, with several thousand believers waiting to be sealed,” it was later reported in the official obituary.
In April 1999, Fernando Muliata was commissioned as District Elder for this district. In November 2008, he was ordained an Apostle (pictured above, second from the right). However, his time in office was short. He died in 2010 after a serious illness. District Apostle Brinkmann wrote in his obituary: “Apostle Muliata was a deeply devout, unfailingly faithul and zealous servant of God.”
Photos: Werner Ruppe / NAKI